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Composer:
Ed Hooke
Written:
January 2022 -
Recorded:
January 2025
Modest, mid-
& now well past its best,
this house clearly once a home has been.
Inside hide displays
of better days,
paled from prior, prized pristine.
For the last few years,
so it appears,
its occupants have numbered merely one.
His long-
longed-
left him lone & undone.
Now though there’s a different dawn:-
front door propped open, curtains drawn,
while routine traffic routes past this spot,
noticing not.
As if some spurious spell contrives,
that thing that thrives in countless drives,
devouring
hives of lives’ archives,
a skip, arrives.
Carpets wrenched from floors;
detached doors; chests of drawers;
shelves; bookcases;
cupboards tall;
albums of photographs
-
pictures picked off each piqued wall.
Dim, dismayed parade:-
curtains frayed & greyed; a lampshade;
a hushed house, hollowed,
mutely howled;
plinth & pot upon
an ottoman;
a home wholly disembowelled.
A walking aid; a ballustrade;
long record player, long unplayed;
grip, strip, rip,
flip, tip -
into the skip.
This building leaks, creaks, reeks & squeaks,
speaks spun threads from three thousand weeks;
a coat of mink; bedsheets of pink;
the
kitchen sink.
A few weeks later,
refitted,
redecorated,
clean as a pin,
the house is ready & waiting
for a new young family to move right in.
Ron’s house
is Ron’s house no more.
Moved on.
Ron is gone.
Ron had a fine career:-
a civil engineer;
justice of the peace, one more vocation;
active in the church;
reputed for research;
running the residents’ association.
Never loud or rude,
not one to intrude
but one you could always rely upon;
a true pillar
of the
local community;
a genuine gentleman -
Procession, slow, through the doorway;
fittings; fixtures; trolleys; a tray.
No passers-
no sign of Ron.
Pairs of chairs; some kitchenwares;
cafetières; odd broken stairs;
a wealth of wizened
workmanship
weaves towards the skip.